Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Rebirth ❯ Into The Farplane ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter Six- Into The Farplane

Flying through the sky on your own wings is like swimming through a deep pool of water around you but you aren't able to feel it. It was exhilarating! The air around them would grow thin or thick as they went higher or lower. Since it was night-time now because they decided to leave immediately, it was much harder to avoid the tips of trees so they followed the main path, surprising the few travelers beneath them as they flew by. Around a bend on their right the Moonflow came into view, it was beautiful!

Yuna had told him on their first visit here that, "It is said at night that pyreflies come out near the moonlilies and the water surface would glow like the stars above." She was right. There were pyreflies everywhere, like the Zanarkand Ruins three years ago. Watching them was like watching a meteor shower in slow motion right beside you.

As they flew close to the water's surface Tidus smiled to Yuna as she was looking down at the long-buried city beneath them. She returned the smile and pointed slightly up to the moon above them, reminiscing about the night a little over three years ago after they had escaped Bevelle and were hiding in the Macalania woods.

"Yo guys, I think I see the tree that Guadosalam was built in." Rikku hollered as she flew up high into the sky. She dived back down towards the party as they all took off flying at top speed towards the Guado city. The shoopuf and its passengers moved slowly underneath them with the passengers pointing and staring as they moved even faster towards Guadosalam.

The group touched down just outside of Guadosalam to find Guado bodies strewn around the entrance like the aftermath of Operation Miihen. The two that were not dead yet but dying fast were mumbling over and over the same words and nothing else. "Lor…Lord Se…Seymour."

Those words alone spoke volumes as the party rushed into the city. The Guado palace lay in ruins and the bridge across the second story had collapsed. Miraculously, the one leading to the Farplane was still intact but many Guado bodies lying on or around it. There was a multitude of dead Guado and Warrior Monks scattered across the scene. The only building in Guadosalam that had not sustained damage was the Inn as its front door was closed but still whole.

The party opened it and walked through to find about twenty Guado lying on the floor, shuddering and holding on tight to each other as if they feared they would be pulled apart. The innkeeper behind the counter peeked his head up above only to let out a scream the next second.

"Aaah! The demons have broken through!" He screamed as he dived back down under the counter. It was then the party realized they had forgot to retract their wings when they went in. They did so and then finally convinced the innkeeper and the rest of the remaining Guado that they weren't demons. After that was finished, that's when the questions began.

Tidus was the first to ask. "Ok. I need to know who or what did this to all of you? This place is a bigger wreck than the Djose shores three years ago."

It was a Guado boy of about twelve who was the first to answer. "It was a peaceful day today but around sundown when most of the village visits the Farplane, something strange happened. We were at the Farplane but it had been completely transformed and destroyed. Then the pyreflies started doing something odd. It was like the pyreflies took the memories of all the dead up there and gave them life again. I saw my dead father come out with a whole horde beside him and started destroying the city. It was like they had no memory of us whatsoever." He said as he broke down into tears as who was probably his mother comforted him.

Another finished his story. "They began to destroy the city and the warrior monks tried to save us and get the ones who were still alive here. They barred the door and we braced it with chairs and other things until we didn't hear any more sounds coming from outside. We were still too scared to even go out and check. Then you people showed up."

"There is no remainder of the horde you talked about, though. There were no zombies or undead out there when we arrived but we ought to go out and bury the dead that are out there and give them a proper sending." Auron said to the group as he turned around and walked back out the door.

"Yes. I think that would be the proper thing to do." Yuna replied.

"Hey guys, if the army was people from the Farplane; shouldn't we be careful about who we send there?" Rikku asked. "I mean, we would just be adding fuel to Seymour's army, right?"

"Kimahri think that dead should be sent but Kimahri and others should visit Farplane." Kimahri answered.

"You're right, brudda. That way we might out somethin' about Seymour, ya' know." Wakka said.

"I agree. Ok, we'll send the dead and then go to the Farplane. But be ready for anything." Lulu finished.

They set to work gathering both the dead Guado and warrior monks and bringing them into groups to be sent by either Tidus or Yuna. The work lasted about two hours and finally the job was done, it was time to go to the Farplane, themselves.

Pressing through the barrier surrounding the lookout point, they came to the landing above the clouds. They activated their wings and took off the ground and came to a hover right above the cloud tops. The dense, yellow fog slowly dissipated, revealing a foreign landscape and a very disturbing image. The once beautiful paradise known as the Farplane had been twisted and warped so that it appeared just a shell of its former beauty. The waterfall near the visiting platform they were on was no longer water, but a blood from every race of Spira. The smell itself was horrendous!

Looking farther towards the horizon they saw that the small prairie at the base of the bloodfall was now burnt and charred with very little foliage remaining whatsoever. It as if something had used a massive Firaga spell to destroy what was left of the land.

Flying down beneath the lookout they saw what was with out a doubt the most terrifying sight any of them had ever seen. The pyreflies were all turning blood red and then joining together and forming the bodies of the dead! They would then go and join large regiments of other undead with the three most evil beings in both the living and underworld commanding them. Seymour and Yunalesca were shouting orders and rallying the troops. The army of undead just stood there like trained militia with out thought or action.

Just then they saw Narok and five other beings just like him gathering together behind Seymour, who happened to have gone through another transformation and now looked like a humanoid version of Anima but with the same color his other transformations had. Yu Yevon then appeared above the generals and made what must have been five duplicates of his body and descended into the generals to control them.

"Gunak! Gunak Meg Infasto!" Yelled something as they looked below them to see a fiend of some sort beneath them, pointing at them.

"Oh crap! Um guys, I think they know we're here now." Rikku said nervously as Seymour shouted something and a three of the generals started to come after them.

"Move!" Auron yelled back.

The group began to fly upwards towards the boundary entrance, turning behind them to see that the generals were still on the ground. "Hey guys, they can't fly so let's take them down from right here using spells. Holy should work." Tidus hollered.

The beings that were like Narok just smiled and grew wings like those of a Zu and took of towards the group.

"Uh oh, brudda. I think you spoke to soon." Wakka said as the group began flying again as fast as possible.

There was no contest when it came to speed against the generals. Gaining fast, the group soon found themselves nearly right in front of the creatures; so close in fact that one of them actually flung one of his tentacles out towards the group. It barely missed Kimahri and Tidus but one person was not so lucky. The tentacle struck Rikku square in the back of the head, effectively knocking her out as well as poisoning her because it was a Marlboro tentacle.

"Rikku, no!" Tidus shouted at the top of her lungs as she began falling towards the ground.

He dove at top speed towards her and nearly caught up to her but one of the creatures got in his way and tried to attack him. Tidus pulled out his Caladbolg while still in mid-dive and slashed completely through the creature, cutting his body into two now falling pieces. It was to late for Rikku however as her body stopped two feet short of the ground as she had been caught by one of Yunalesca's tentacles and pulled towards the evil alliance.

"We have to go, Tidus! It's too late! We have to regroup before we fight them to get her back!" Wakka yelled, grimacing.

"She was the one who rescued me when I first landed in Spira; I've got to help her out now! I'm not letting that damned psycho Seymour turn her into another one of his zombies to be killed in the Calm Lands! I'd die before anyone that I know helps him out." Tidus hollered back, between slashes through the rest of the Narok copies. After about two minutes, all the creatures trying to kill them were laying in misshapen pieces under them.

"Guys, use your heads. If we leave her down there for now, we can surely bet Seymour, Yunalesca, and Yu Yevon wouldn't hesitate to kill her off and use the power we all have against her. Instead of using our weapons; lets' use our minds." Lulu said with no tone in her voice like usual. Hard as it was for them to admit that they weren't right, they had to because they both knew she was right.

"I got it! The fayth said that we had the power to create or destroy with just our minds. Let's all concentrate at the same time and every pyrefly down there." Yuna said calm but definitely serious.

Following her and Lulu's ideas, they began concentrating and imaging that all the pyreflies were nonexistent. Soon, the soldiers in the alliance's massive army began to disappear. Their bodies would dissipate in pyreflies and then they would just fade into oblivion. Yunalesca shouted a command out to the last remaining soldiers to start battling them using their magic. The soldiers could have definitely killed them easily as there were at least three thousand of them about to all cast spells at the same time.

Yuna broke off her concentration for a minute as she used a seventh level white magic spell to create a super-powerful magic Nul Spell around the group, stopping all magic from even touching him. Tidus could just sit back and smile in admiration; even after Sin was gone she still learned all she could just in case.

Yuna began to concentrate again as the group kept reducing the soldiers' remnants till there were about five hundred left. Tidus stopped concentrating and began flying faster than any of them had ever gone as he went in a straight line to where Rikku was lying on the ground near Seymour.

"Seymour!" He yelled as he pulled the Caladbolg from its sheath and dove straight towards him. He would end it here and now.

Right before the sword would have struck Seymour, the fiendish bastard leapt out of the way and then tried to counterattack using an Ultimaga spell. Tidus cut him off before he had a chance to finish summoning the magic to do it. With a slash straight through his chest, Seymour fell to the ground as something weird and terrifying began. He tried to say something but it only came out in parts. "I… using dreams…the key of Maorix…world is mine."

His odd muttered words had no meaning to Tidus who began concentrating as hard as he could and started making Seymour's pyrefly troupe disappear. Auron, Wakka, and Yuna were fighting Yunalesca, who had turned into her final form again and was continually trying multiple failed attempts at casting Mega-Death. Kimahri and Lulu had Yu Yevon backed in between his Pagodas again and were making quick work of him too. Tidus shouted to them to let them know that Seymour was gone and he had Rikku as he flew out of the Farplane and gave to the Innkeeper to take care of.

By the time he returned to the battle scene, Lulu and Yuna were trying with some success to return the Farplane to its old condition using multiple castings of the fifth level Cure spell named Curagata. The river and waterfall were hardest though because of the blood in them. Once it was gone Lulu used a casting of Wateragata Fury to make the waterfall actually run again. Then it was finally time to leave the Farplane.

Back in the real world at the Inn in Guadosalam, the group finally had a few hours to relax and try to connect the events of the last day. If it could be called anything, it should have been called a trip through Heaven and Hell. Rikku was still unconscious but it seemed that the antidote that they found for the poison was finally starting to work.

"Ok, it looks like we took care of that troublesome three once and for all; but what exactly did Seymour say, Tidus?" Yuna asked, smiling at him with her smile that melted his heart every time she even looked.

After thinking and recalling Seymour's cryptic final words Tidus then replied, "He said something like `using dreams, the Key of Maorix, and how the world was his."

"Ah, so that's how he planned to destroy Spira. The Key of Maorix was created about six hundred years after Sin destroyed Zanarkand. It was created by a cast out summoner who went by the name of Lord Gashin. Around the time Gashin completed the Key, the area he was living at the time was attacked by Sin. Gashin's body was found but not the Key." Auron said. "That was the last that Spira ever heard of him or his creations."

"But what is the Key?" Lulu asked to the surprise of everyone. She usually knew the most of everyone in the group.

"The Key would be the main attack force behind the Alliance. It is a magical artifact of unimaginable powers. It was rumored that its name came from a long destroyed city called Maorix Prime. The city was buried by an aeon named Colossus said to be far stronger than Sin. It was said that the key could only be used by a summoner whose pilgrimage was completed. The Key drew the fayth out of the summoner's body and into it. The fayth called the aeons they controlled and the key somehow merged them together to Colossus."

"Sounds like a fairytale that most of the world forgot, ya' know." Wakka answered.

"It is as real as any of us standing here." Auron said.

"How would Seymour use it, though? You said that it could only be a summoner who had already completed their pilgrimage. Seymour is dead and can only summon Anima. He hasn't done any sort of pilgrimage yet."

"Perhaps he would have used the temples in each of the villages before he burnt them down. Anyway, I am going to sleep now. I suggest all of you do the same."

"Why?" Tidus asked.

"Because if Seymour knew where the key was, what's to stop someone else from finding it and using it as well. We need to start our own search for it." He replied as he turned and walked towards his room.

Tidus and Yuna got up to go to their room as well as Tidus thought silently to himself, I thought the journey was over but it looks like I've still got a lot to do. He thought as he smiled to Yuna once she slipped her arm around his waist on the way in to the room. If I've got to live through a tough life, I might as well spend it with my friends and the girl I love.

Meanwhile, something began to stir in the depths of the underworld beyond the Farplane.